Chapter 2 - The Cruelty Behind the Golden Gates
Just eight hours earlier, Sophia had believed this would be the day she finally earned enough money to buy Emma’s winter coat and lifesaving asthma medication. For seven months, Sophia had cleaned the eighty-room Moretti fortress from sunrise to midnight, enduring exhausting shifts without a single complaint. She kept her head down, ignored the whispered rumors of syndicate wars, and did everything she could to remain invisible.
Damiano Moretti was a ghost in his own house—quiet, commanding, and lethal. He rarely spoke to the domestic staff, but he maintained a strict code of honor: no women or children were ever to be harmed under his roof.
Isabella Romano, however, lived by no such code.
As the daughter of the rival Romano dynasty, Isabella had been betrothed to Damiano in an arranged political alliance to unite the eastern and western territories. She was breathtakingly beautiful, but behind closed doors, she treated the household staff like worthless vermin. She took special pleasure in tormenting Sophia.
"You missed a speck of dust on the grand chandelier, peasant," Isabella had sneered that very morning, deliberately dumping a full glass of red wine onto the clean hall rug. "Clean it with your bare hands. And if I see your sickly little stray wandering near the executive wing again, I will personally throw both of you into the street with nothing but the clothes on your backs."
Sophia had swallowed her tears, dropped to her knees, and began blotting the wine with her apron. Emma had watched from the shadows of the archway, holding her plush bunny tight against her chest, her dark eyes absorbing every cruel word, every spiteful laugh.
Neither Isabella nor Sophia realized that little Emma had already seen something far more dangerous than spilled wine.
May you like
👉 *Something had happened in the Don's private study only thirty minutes before the wine was poured.*
***
